Erika Hoffmann

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Erika Hoffmann (born March 28, 1902 in Neuteicherwalde , district of Marienburg (Westpr.) ; † February 5, 1995 in Göttingen ) was one of the leading German personalities in Froebel, preschool and social pedagogy, professor for toddler and primary school pedagogy, headmistress , Specialist journalist.

Biography and work

Erika Luise Laura Hoffmann was the daughter of a village school teacher. She attended the secondary school for girls and then completed teacher training for elementary and middle schools as well as lyceums. From 1923 she studied natural sciences in Göttingen, but soon changed the field of study and joined the group of students around Herman Nohl . She completed her studies in 1928 with a doctorate in education as a major. The topic of her dissertation was: Dialectical thinking in education .

From 1928 to 1947, Erika Hoffmann was, with a short interruption, a specialist teacher for education and psychology at the renowned Pestalozzi-Froebel-Haus in Berlin . From this time on she researched and published intensively on Friedrich Froebel , his idea of ​​the kindergarten, his philosophy, his toys and activities and his writings until her death . Even then, she advocated seeing the kindergarten not as an emergency aid for the failing and harassed family or as anticipatory relief for the school. Rather, Erika Hoffmann saw the kindergarten as a special educational space for the toddler years , as an institution for the holistic education of the child before school, taking into account the child's psychological and spiritual characteristics (cf. Kaiser / Oubaid 1986, p. 63).

In the summer of 1936 she exhibited the fröbelsch toy system in full in Munich for the first time, in the context of a conference of the NS Chamber of Crafts on Law and Shape , followed by a further and improved exhibition in 1940 in Bayreuth for the 100th anniversary of the kindergarten, then in 1948 in the Sonnenberg toy museum, where it can still be seen today. The publication of Friedrich Froebel's selected writings (vol. 1 1951; vol. 2 1951; vol. 4 1982 and vol. 5 1986), which are still of great importance for Froebel research, deserves special emphasis.

From 1934 to 1943 she was an editorial member of the quarterly magazine Kinderforschung . During this time she did not become a member of the NSDAP , despite repeated requests from the administration, but had been in the NSV since 1934 and in the NSLB since 1935 . In doing so, it adapted uncritically to the Völkisch-national and the mental structure of the national community .

After the collapse of the Nazi dictatorship the teacher by the British military authorities were on questions of reeducation called in as a consultant. Nothing is known about their denazification .

At the beginning of 1947, Erika Hoffmann moved to Weimar. There she set up a Froebel research center at the Goethe-Schiller-Archiv . At the same time, she taught psychology at the local kindergarten teachers' seminar. Just six months later, Erika Hoffmann, with the support of reform pedagogue Peter Petersen, was appointed professor with a full teaching position for pedagogy in kindergarten and elementary school in the pedagogical faculty of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena as an employee . In autumn 1949 she fled the GDR and took on a teaching position at the Lüneburg University of Education, where she was fired in 1951. She then headed the Evangelical Fröbelseminar Kassel until 1966 .

In the course of general educational policy disputes in the mid-1960s, the kindergarten and the Froebel pedagogy, which had predominantly been practiced until then, became the focus of public criticism. Erika Hoffmann took sides for Friedrich Froebel and his idea of ​​the kindergarten, which she proclaimed as the first level of education. The pedagogue countered the critics: He (Friedrich Froebel) criticized the entire education and school system of his time and wanted to lay the foundation for a new education with the kindergarten. This institution should intensify the family - by no means replace it - and convey it to school. The child should be ready for school through play care. The German school, however, did not accept kindergarten as the first level of education (quoted in Berger 1990, p. 84).

For Erika Hoffmann, the kindergarten is a socio-educational institution that has to fulfill the following three tasks:

"- In working with the children, he creates a space in which children can express themselves according to their development possibilities, namely through play, which thus replaces the direct real experiences that were previously possible,
- through the organization of the age group, the kindergarten replaces the neighborhood of the family and the age group of the earlier time,
- In the work with the parents, the kindergarten enables the adult to pay attention to the developmental needs of the children in order to be able to react accordingly in the family ”(Becker-Textor 1993, p. 65).

During the pre-school congress in 1970 Hoffmann's kindergarten concept was judged to be outdated and antiquated:

The fact that children can and want to achieve something, that it is a matter of converting their curiosity into curiosity, is often still brusquely rejected in kindergartens. Former pedagogue Erika Hoffmann, member of the board of the Pestalozzi-Fröbel Association: 'We are convinced that we have to put up an educational resistance to precocity. The kindergarten should and must provide this resistance. And because the promotion of child intelligence is confused with precocity, it is still the case in most kindergartens that the 'pleasure in one's own performance ... in this happy togetherness and for one another has to recede for a while', as Erika Hoffmann resolutely is located .

Erika Hoffmann was a member of important associations such as: Pestalozzi-Froebel Association , Professional Association of Protestant Child Care , Working Group for Youth Welfare and Organization mondiale pour l'Education préscolaire , to name just a few.

Works (selection)

  • Henriette Schrader-Breymann , Langensalza 1930
  • Froebel's theory of play 3. Essays on the third gift, Langensalza
  • Friedrich Froebel. Correspondence with children, Berlin 1940
  • Friedrich Froebel to Countess Brunszvik . Berlin 1944
  • Friedrich Froebel and Karl Hagen , Weimar 1948
  • Friedrich Froebel. Selected Writings. Volume 1: Small writings and letters from 1809–1851, Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1951
  • Friedrich Froebel. Selected Writings. Volume 2: Human education, Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1951
  • The German Kindergarten, in: Our Youth, 6 1954, pp. 345-350.
  • The problem of school readiness. Würzburg 1956
  • The kindergarten in the village, in: Evangelische Kinderpflege, 13, 1962, pp. 219–224.
  • How modern is Froebel ?, in: Playing and Learning, 1, 1961, pp. 20–22.
  • About the socio-educational methods, in Neue Sammlung , 1962, pp. 36–51.
  • Pre-school education in Germany. Historical development in outline. Witten 1971
  • Friedrich Froebel. Selected Writings. Volume 4: The games, Stuttgart 1982
  • Friedrich Froebel. Selected Writings. Volume 5: Letters and documents about Keilhau. First attempt at spherical education, Stuttgart 1986

Literature (selection)

  • Ingeborg Becker-Textor: Kindergarten, in: Ingeborg Becker-Textor, Martin R. Textor (Hrsg.): Handbook of child and youth care. Neuwied 1993, pp. 47-77.
  • Manfred Berger : 150 years of kindergarten. A letter to Friedrich Froebel. Frankfurt 1990
  • Manfred Berger: Erika Hoffmann. A pioneer of modern experiential education? Lueneburg 1996
  • Manfred Berger:  Erika Hoffmann. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 22, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-133-2 , Sp. 550-569.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Manfred Berger: Life and work of the Froebel and kindergarten teacher Erika Hoffmann (1902-1955). A biographical-pedagogical sketch , Göttingen 2018
  • Sigrid Ebert, Christine Lost (Ed.): Educate - educate - supervise. In memory of Erika Hoffmann. Munich 1995
  • Hermann Tausch: The Froebel Understanding of Erika Hoffmann (1902–1995). Study of Froebel Reception in the 20th Century. Donauwörth 2003 (unpublished diploma thesis)
  • Astrid Kaiser / Monika Oubaid (ed.): German pedagogues of the present. Cologne 1986, pp. 59-66.
  • Ludwig J. Pongratz (Hrsg.): Pedagogy in self-portrayals. Volume 4, Hamburg 1982, pp. 81-214.
  • Roswitha von Rad: Erika Hoffmann - her life and work for Friedrich Froebel and the kindergarten. Gotha 2000

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manfred Berger, article Hoffmann, Erika in: Hugo Maier (Hrsg. :) Who is who der Sozialen Arbeit , Lambertus, Freiburg im Breisgau 1998, p. 259 and especially Rad 2000, p. 74 ff.
  2. ↑ cit. n. Rad 2000, p. 118, archived in the Ida-Seele archive
  3. ↑ again in: Hermann Röhrs , ed .: Social pedagogy and their theory. Selection of representative texts, pedagogy. Frankfurt 1968, pp. 11-30. Esp. on the role of women in social education
personal data
SURNAME Hoffmann, Erika
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Froebel researcher, pedagogue for toddler education, professor for toddler and primary school pedagogy, headmistress, specialist journalist
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuteicherwalde , district of Marienburg (West Pr.)
DATE OF DEATH 5th February 1995
Place of death Goettingen